Not everything is as it appears
by Draguna Doragon
Summary: Tom is part of a secret core, dedicated to keeping the public safe while they aren't looking by killing off all outbreaks of Xenomorphs. but on his last mission, something goes wrong. it changes his life, and especially his newlywed wife.
1. having a bad day

"Carla?" Thomas walked through the door of their new home, waiting to see the woman of his heart. "Carla? Where are you?"

"Boo!" Carla jumped out from behind the open door and jumped onto his back. "Got you!"

"Oh no you don't!" Thomas span around and ran further into the house. It was like a dream. The sun shining in through the brand new windows, the warm yellow walls of the hall and the fresh smell of furnished wood in the air. As he span, giggles came to his ears and long ebony hair fell all over his face. "Just you wait 'till I get my hands on you!"

"You are just grumpy because I won't let you touch me until the honey moon."

"Well yes." He stopped and looked in the mirror opposite. Staring back at him was a young man in his 20's, with light brown hair, green eyes, creamy skin and a rugged smile. But over his shoulder held a more, alluring sight for him. Carla's dark hair made it hard to see, but he could just see past the wavy ebony veil. Bright blue eyes, cute little freckles on her cheeks and nose, peachy skin and small dimples where she smiled. Her long ebony black hair was wild with curly locks and a perfect fringe over her forehead. "But it will be worth the wait."

"Good. Because we have a lot of unpacking to do." Carla dropped off his back, stumbled from the spin, and made her way up the stairs. "You coming?"

"Sure I." The phone rang and cut him off. "Just after I get that."

"Ok, don't be long. You are not leaving it all for me to do." She skipped up the stairs, happy as a new bride should be and vanished into the bedroom.

"That depends who's on the phone…" Tom leaned against the wall and lifted the speaker piece to his mouth, and listened. "Hello?"

"Agent Black. It's been a while."

"Listen Jackal, I don't want you calling me anymore, especially not here."

"Afraid your little wify-poo will pick up the phone? You know I wouldn't divulge your 'occupation' to her. You are too valuable."

"Look, I am not part of Operation Rolling Thunder Two anymore, so stop calling me. And why are you calling me?" The frustration in his voice was starting to elevate, but not loud enough to deter the man on the other end of the phone.

"You will never leave the core. You know that. Just because you grow a backbone and try to hightail it, doesn't mean we will let you go all that easily."

"I have a wife. I have a new life and a job at the hardware store. I left the core and I will never go back."

"…How is Carla?" Tom's eyes budged in his head and felt his throat grow sore.

"How did you know her name?"

"We have eyes and ears everywhere Black. You know that." His face drained of all colour as the deep voice continued. "You're not out of our reach Black. Not by far."

"I take it my landline is tapped and my computer is bugged?"

"As standard yes."

"What else?"

"But Black, if I told you that, it would ruin the surprise." Tom looked over his shoulder to check that Carla was still upstairs.

"What surprise?"

"Surprise is the wrong word. Offer is more like it."

"What do you mean offer? I will not take bribes Jackal."

"This is not just a bribe, it is a decision. A decision that you better make wisely, or pretty little Carla, may not live through it…"

"How dare you threaten!"

"I can do as I like Black, or should I say Claws?"

"I told you no, and never call me that again!"

"I can call you what the hell I like Black!"

"Listen Jackal!"

"No you listen Claws. I own you. The core owns you and if we think it is time for you to get your pretty boy ass, out of your comfy chair and do your duty to your country, then by God you will get your pretty boy ass out of your comfy chair and do as you are told!"

"I won't do it."

"Then Carla will pay the price." The underlining promise in that statement, chilled his spine and made him check behind him, paranoid of where his wife was. She wasn't there and he turned his back to the stairs.

"Leave her out of this...please..."

"The words of a desperate man ay Black?" Thomas met Carla at school. They stayed together through out school, worked together in university and married only a week ago. They were due to go on their honeymoon in only a week. He couldn't let anything happen to her. He loved her.

"Just say what you called me to say. What do you want?"

"We have one more mission for you."

Carla hummed to herself as she unpacked her clothed. For two years she and Tom had saved up for the dream house and the perfect wedding. They married on a cruse boat off the coast of Hawaii last week. They moved into their new house a few days ago and Tom even had a new job all planned out. Her day was perfect, her life was perfect. Nothing could go wrong.

Thud.

She span round and ran out the room. A loud crash came from the lounge and within seconds. Carla skidded to a stop in the lounge, only to see Tom with half a broken phone in his hand, and surrounded by the debris of the once new table.

"What happened? Why is he phone in two pieces... And what the hell happened to the table?"

"Nothing. I'm just...having a bad day..."


	2. Enter Claws

Chapter 2 

"Honey...where are you going?" _darn...I was hoping to go before she woke up..._

"I need to go our for a while. The hardware store needs for me to go to their headquarters for my interview. Got the call yesterday. Sorry, I might be gone for a few days. But not too long."

"Tom, this is just like in Uni. You took of on a whim and won't tell me why. You promised not to do that anymore!" Carla pulled his arm and tried to make him stay. "And what kind of hardware store wants you to go for an interview, for a few days, dressed like you are of to war!" Tom looked away. It wasn't very convincing from his full black and navy camouflage body suit, his flameproof black boots and his duffel bag of 'equipment' as he called it. In all true, his bag held a set of desert eagles with a reload attachment, a flame thrower kit, a riffle or two, grenades, a mini bazooka, C4 explosives and his famous metal knuckle spikes. That's where he got the name claws.

"Do you trust me?" He held her shoulders and looked her straight in her eyes.

"Yes but."

"Do you love me?"

"Of course I do."

"Then trust that I will return to you in a few days. And this is the last time. I promise…"

"…don't you dare be long."

"I wont. Be back soon I swear!" Tom ran out the house before Carla could protest and jumped into a waiting four by four. Carla waved solemnly as her husband vanished into the mysterious car and sped down the street.

"Come home soon honey…come home safe…"

_**In the car**_

"Welcome back Claws."

"I'm not back for long. This is the last time and don't even talk to me arsewhole." Tom looked to his bag and began piecing his _toys_ together.

"Oh please. If I got upset by every guy who called me an arsewhole, I would be one sorry state of a man."

"You already are one." There was a silence as the car jumped from the bumpy road. "We must be off the road now."

"Boarding a ship actually. Then a chopper will pick us up and then to the target site." The second man in the car had an army hair cut, the body of a steroid abuser and polished his favourite revolver.

"Why do you love that old gun so much Jackal? It's just a piece of outdated plastic."

"This piece of 'outdated plastic' has saved my life 6 times. And the men around me 4. Sometimes, the older ways are best. Especially when you go up against our kind of enemy."

"You talk as if you had no choice." Tom spat, and strapped his foot protectors on.

"I don't."

"And yet you drag me back with you?" Tom loaded his flamethrower cartage and continued to scowl.

"Well Claws. We work so well together, that I was _ordered_ to bring you back. So I am not as such the bad guy as you may like to think."

"Once an arsewhole always an arsewhole. No matter the orders or the rank."

"Look I know you got out. I know you want the nice and peachy life with your wife. But how safe is she if those things spread any further? If guys like us weren't around then people like Carla would be dead."

"**How dare you."** Thomas slammed a grenade on the side and bore his teeth. "If guys like us weren't around, then this wouldn't have started in the first place. If guys like us weren't around, then those things wouldn't be dragging off our children and sisters, brothers and mothers, fathers and grandparents off into the darkness and put through chestation! Because if guys like us weren't around, then those bastards wouldn't have ever come to this planet. Because _we_ wouldn't have brought them." Jackal strapped his body armour, acid proof body armour, and fastened on his hard helmet.

"Just aim and shoot claws. Just aim and shoot."

"Oh I will aim and shoot Jackal." Tom clicked his flamethrower and had fantasies of all the different ways he could melt Jackal's skin from his bones. "Just be sure to stay out of my way. Because if I ever get the chance to aim." He raised it to point between Jackal's eyes. "And shoot…. Then you will not be going back on this chopper. You'll be going home in a match box because nothing else will be small enough to carry your ashes." He stood with his belt littered with grenades and slung his flamethrower over his shoulder. He then pulled on his thick acid proof, black leather gloves and attached his 'claws' to them.

"I hope you are grateful. This way, you can vent your anger for me onto the bugs and kill like you know you love to. You're a born killer."

"And let me guess. That is why I am so valuable? Because I am good at murder?"

"I wouldn't be surprised if you left that hardware store crap and joined the cops. Just to feel the smooth metal of a gun in your hands again. This is who you are Claws. You live for this."

"I live for my wife, the woman I love. I made the decision a long time ago to give up this shit for her and ask her to marry me. I want to settle down." The chopper landed next to the car and they ran to it, carrying their gear. "I want to sit in the comfy chair of my lounge, read stories to my children and grandchildren in front of a roaring fire. I want to pet rover's head and read the newspaper in a morning. I want to obsess over the damn weeds in the garden and learn how to paint terribly." The chopper took off when they were all belted in. "And I want for my wife to be able to wake up in the morning, with me next to her. Not wake up to an empty bed and worry if I got my ass shot while she slept. Not if I will return to her in a day, a few days, a week or a month. Or even never."

"That's why you never told her what you do. You told her you work for a military academy. Am I right?"

"Right. And after this, I am done Jackal. I am done."

After a 15-minuet flight of silence, Jackal and Claws transferred to a black hawk and joined another 9 or so men. One was the leader of the group and the 11 (including them) were on-field soldiers. All were clad in black felt armour and covered in various guns, machetes and grenades. For eleven men to have so much ammo, made you wonder just who they were up against.

"Right men. I am field commander Hide. The nature of this mission is not only classified but of the greatest importance."

"Oh come on Hide. We know all this crap."

"Quite Jones. Protocol and all that." He paced the black hawk once, and polished a hand held pistol. "The enemy may not look like the menaces they are, but they are more cunning than any Viet Con, Iraq suicide bomber or secret agent pencil pusher. They are the raw definition of survivors and predators. They hide in the darkness and have bigger teeth then any tiger in your text books. This isn't like learning how to escape a police dog once they are sent on you. If they bite you, you can't open their jaws and escape. If they bite you, then you are as good as dead. And usually, you're already dead." Tom looked over the other men.

"Jackal, what are these boys doing here?"

"Boys?"

"Yes, boys. I am very tempted to ask f they have hit puberty yet. Look at them, pimply and scrawny."

"Sorry Tom, people are getting younger and younger from the academy."

"They shouldn't be here...they're so young..." Hide continued and stood close to Tom, who looked up at him as he went over his grenade supplies.

"If for any reason you are take by the enemy, understand that we will not come after you. If your comrade is taken, do not seek to rescue them. We are not here to be the hero; we are here to be the exterminator. We go in, we kill and we leave once the Queen is dead and the drones are bloody messes." Hide turned away and held one finger against his ear. "The pilot says we are over the site. We are in desert conditions and you will parachute from the air and down to the ground. As soon as you leave this hawk, we will circle round and will be giving cover fro the air. I myself will be arming the guns. We will be in touch through walkie-talkie and will call you when we are ready to pick you up. From the 'all officers return to the drop site', you will have five minuets to get your asses to the surface. We will collect you and wait five minuets for ay stragglers. Any longer than that, and you are left behind. Arm the drop doors. Good luck men. I hope to see you in 40 minuets." Hide left to the cockpit and joined the pilot.

Tom followed the others and Jackal to the drop doors and they opened. Tom was greeted with a harsh slap in the face from the humid, sand filled, desert air. His lips grew dry and his fists clenched. He never wanted to be here again. But here he was...and this time _was_ the last time.

He took a deep breath and looked to Jackal, who practised his aim with his pistol at arms length.

"Ready to watch the shit hit the pan once again claws?"

"We will soon see." Tom strapped his parachute on and turned as one of the youngest men tapped him on the shoulder.

"Excuse me, but why do they call you claws?" Tom didn't take his professionally shielded eyes off him and pulled something from the very bottom of his satchel. They were a pair of black, acid proof leather gloves with thick, metallic discs over all five of the knuckles on each hand. He then pulled out, one by one, long titanium blades twice the size of his hand span and they all clicked into place into the blades on his knuckles and attached to the back of his fingers. Once snapped into place, they were a set of deadly claws.

"That's why."

"But what is the point of having those? You have a gun don't you?"

"True, but recently these bastards have been evolving. Adapting to our weapons. Pretty soon, they will become bullet proof and when they do, we are all fucked."

"They can't become bullet proof...can they?"

"Why do you think we have as ma y grenades on us as we can? So far they aren't bomb or flame proof. But I wouldn't put it past them to ad that to their little deadly list of attributes."

"If guns don't work, then why do we carry them?"

"As a just in case. Their hides may be bullet _resistant_, but if one tries to bite you, you shot them straight in the mouth and they will go down. But as a last resort. I'm called claws because I can go hand to hand with them like you can play pat-a-cake with your mommy."

"GO GO GO!" the radio rasped. All the men launched out the open drop doors and pulled the cord on their parachutes.

Thomas looked down at the ground and saw shadows move from the rocks and boulders on the ground. "They know we're here. So the element of surprise is out of the question." With a thud his boots came into contact with the sandy ground and he instantly pulled his flamethrower from his back and pulled another cord, detaching the parachute from the straps. It billowed around him from the wind of the circling Helicopter. "Why aren't they attacking? They know we're here..."

"Maybe their scared."

"No. Those without souls do not fell fear. Or anything else either." Tom looked out he corner of his eye to see a young recruit. He was of Red Indian decent and had a worldly look about him. He held a dagger in his left hand and a pistol in the right. "They say, that these creatures have no souls. They are drones and function simply because their Mother call to them. Some say they are possessed by demonic spirits like humans sometimes are. But humans can be saved be an exorcism as we already have a soul. But they do not and so cannot be saved. If they are invaded with a soul, they are cursed permanently.

"Quiet." Everyone held their breaths and listened to the wispping sand dunes and the dead, foreboding wind. Slight hissing could be heard in the background and then it happened. Swarms of them jumped out from the rocks and an open cave. There were hundred of them! They all had razor sharp jaws, bigger talons than any other creature and spear tipped tails. Their backs were dark, skeletal and had four main spikes reaching to the young sky. Their heads were smooth and long with no eyes. They stood on four legs and hissed as their demonic forms encircled all the men. "Ready."

"Come on. They are going to kill us."

"No. Wait. They are waiting for us to go first."

"They are freaking over sized cockroaches! They don't wait or think!" the young and foolish ex marine ran at them with his gun blazing.

"No!" within moments, tens of them crushed his spine with their feet and mangled his body, ripping the flesh from the bone and devouring it. He never stood a chance. "All men move!" Tom shouted and raised his flamethrower. He flayed most of them in his way and picked up the tags of the fallen man. His family would then know he was dead. He was so young...

But when you have so many Xenomorphs trying to kill you, you can't reminisce for long.

He torched another and made his way into the cave, going deeper. Most of the Xeno's came from here, so the nest must be deep in the ground. The objective was to kill the Queen, so down he went. One of the creatures came out of nowhere and bit down into the side barrel of his flamethrower. Broken and useless, he discarded it and threw a grenade straight down the inner mouth of the beast. It exploded, but he had run deeper into the cave by then. He saw a crack in the wall. There it was. He pulled another grenade, ready to pull the pin. But the mother of all bitches screeched in his ear. He span round and the Queen herself glowered at him, jaws wide open and fangs protruding. "I take it this is where you scream your head off at me, your little minions come running and you watch as they smash through my skull and eat my brains out. Not today." He flicked his wrists and the titanium claws extended to their full length. "Come on momma bug. Let's dance." She screeched and came out from the shadows. Stood tall, she stood at least 16 feet above him and had four arms. Two smaller arms near her chest and two main ones in the usual place. She had two large back legs and a huge head. Her crest and crown spiked and curved to show her deadly presence and determine her hierarchy. But something was missing from this black alpha female. Where was her egg sack? Unless she had finished her cycle. Good, he wouldn't have to worry about anything but her, no eggs.

Hopefully.

She launched forwards and jabbed forward with her mighty tail. The spade lodged into the wall by his head as he ducked, and he rolled on the floor until he was behind her. Tom clawed at her back and smiled as the green blood trickled down his acid proof talons. "Stings, doesn't it." He received another high pitch scream and something small coiled around his neck. He panicked and tried to get it off, but he would claw his own face and neck off if he did. It didn't seem to be doing anything so he charged at the Queen again. The 'thing' had been enough of a distraction and the Queen was ready for him. Her tail shot from the wall and encircled his waist and legs. She roared in his face and the slimy tail moved around his neck. A crab like creature with 8 tendrils hissed in his face. But his eyes were staring at the very centre of the spider/crab like critter. There was a mouth and a sucker like mouthpiece that was level with his mouth. Then, his yelling was stifled as it clamped down around his head, its tendrils ensnaring his head and 'hugging' his face. He lurched as something thin and wild forced it's way into his mouth and down his throat. He started to choke on it and felt it ooze something down his oesophagus. Tom brought his claws o the creature and stuck the talons into its back. It hissed and constricted around his neck. But he managed to cut one of the coils of the tail and he soon cut it from him face. The 'face hugger' squirmed on the floor in agony and pieces while Tom gasped for air. His hair stuck to his head and a thick lubricating slime clung to his face. When he opened his eyes he looked up at the Queen and glared murder. "Now Bitch, its personal." He slashed at her chest, leaving four diagonal lines from her left shoulder to her right side. She wailed in agony and dropped him. Tom went to kill her, but Jackal came in from nowhere and dragged him out the cave. "What the fuck is wrong with you! I almost had her!"

"I think something's wrong with your radio. We have 2 minuets to get on the chopper before they leave us. Our time is up and the window is closing. Hurry up!" Tom ran after him and pulled his gloved off, stuffing them in his pocket. He then wiped the goo from his face and took hold of the dangling rope. Jackal held the other and both wrapped the rope around their legs to ensure they held on tightly. Xeno's still poured from the hidden cave and tried to pull Jackal down from the rope. But...they weren't even trying to go after Tom. He looked down as they all swarmed around the end of the rope and yanked on it with their teeth. "WOW! Those bastards are smarter than they look!"

"You figure that out now?" But they didn't touch the rope Tom was on. He leaned over with one hand and reached out for Jackal. "Jump across. They aren't smart enough to go after both of us."

"Catch me!" Jackal let go of the rope and made a leap of faith. Little over an hour ago (the pilot gave them extra time), Claws had told him he would shoot him if he came too close in the field. And he knew Claws hated him for dragging him back into the core. But now he was his only hope. As he fell, he promised himself that he would never call his partner in again, give him what he deserved. An early retirement. And in that moment, his hand was caught in Tom's and his whole body swung by it.

"Don't let go!"

"Stop your whining. I've got you." The rope was pulled up into the black hawk and both men crashed out on the floor. "Surprise surprise. Only us two survived."

"And me." Tom panted and looked to see the Red Indian descendant leaning over him with a towel. "Here, you look like you could use this."

"Thanks. And good job. It's very rare that people of your age last their first mission. I hope you go home and never come back." The younger man knotted his eyebrows in confusion and handed over the towel. Tom wiped his face and dabbed the sweat off his neck. "I never want to do that again." He glared to Jackal and he got to message.

"Don't worry. I will never call you in again. You're lucky to be alive. I had to save your ass before the US troops napalmed the damn site."

"Thanks I guess."

"Don't 'thanks I guess me'. You are past your prime, even at 25. You will never make it in the core and I never want to see you on any mission ever again. You understand me Claws...Tom..."

"Thank you Jackal. That means a lot to me." Tom smiled, but rubbed his chest as he felt something sting and prick at his oesophagus, right next to his bronchioles.

"You alright?"

"Yeah, just heart burn I guess." It faded quickly and he was soon back in the car on the boat. "I can't wait to see Carla again. I need a shower first, but then I will go home and."

"Wow wow wow. Hold it right there I do not need to know the rest of that sentence. And you can get a shower here on the ship if you like."

"I think I will. Thanks Jackal. You're not such an ass as I thought you were."

"I will take that as a complement. And you did save my life back there."

"But _you_ did by pulling me out that cave. So we are even. Man I stink."

"And you're filthy. Go get a shower for God's sake!"

"I will. I won't see you round."

"No you won't."

At least, that's what they thought. Fate has this nasty way of biting you in the ass at times. And destinies Jaws were wide open.

Carla hadn't stopped pacing all day. As soon as she watched her husband walk through that door, she went through many stages. First she was shocked and just stared at the open door for an hour. Then she screamed and threw a vase at the wall. Then came the sobbing and running up the stairs with her face in her hands. Carla was still on her bed, curled up in a ball, her knees in her chest and her heart on her sleeve, weeping.

"H h how c could he do this a again?" she sobbed, screwed her fists into the quilt cover. "The last time he just left like this, he didn't come back for hours and had a broken arm. A broken arm! How do you get a broken arm, from teaching cadets in a gym! With mats and those marks looked like a dog had mauled him. He couldn't have gotten that from tripping over his shoes. He promised..." She sniffed again and looked out the open window. Rain poured from the heavens and a flash of lightning illuminated her figure for a moment, before the light vanished. A loud crack of thunder met her ears as she laid her head down once more. "You promised not to do this again. You promised not to leave me again...just come home Tom. Just come home to me..."

Carla cried herself to sleep, hoping her husband would come home soon. Safe and sound.

"Remember, you promised that you wouldn't call on me again."

"I know. Now get lost before I change my mind." Tom smiled and jumped out the new jeep. "Now piss off will ya?"

"Sure will. Good bye Jackal."

"You were good in the core. Last chance to say?"

"Bugga off and leave me alone. I have a wife to _think_ about."

"Fine. Your loss. My gain." The jeep purred with the jump-start and sped off into the distance. Tom watched it vanish into the heat haze of the sun, knowing he would never see it again. _At last._

Tom tip toed through the front door, the unlocked front door and closed it quietly. He agreed to stay overnight with the lads and party, simply so that he could rest up and look relatively normal before returning to Carla. If he looked exhausted and half dead, that would just make her worry. And he was able to have a bath so he didn't stink of alien goo anymore.

Tom found her in bed, fully dressed and curled up in the covers like a kitten. He smiled as he pulled his jacket and trousers off, and joined her in the bed. He spooned her into his body, holding her in his arms and kissed the back of her neck.

"Morning babe. How are we feeling?"

"Urgh?" she groaned and turned over to face him, rubbing her face with her hands, just like a kitten. "Thomas?"

"Yes?" he smiled, as her tired eyes seemed to come to life.

"TOM!" Carla jumped ontop of him and kissed every inch of his face.

"Nice to see you to." He chuckled and rolled her over, so he was ontop of her.

"Oh Tom." She held him tightly, as if afraid that he could vanish at any moment. "Are you hurt? You don't have another broken arm do you?"

"No, of course not. There's nothing wrong with." Tom wheezed loudly and thumped his chest. "Wow, where did that come from?"

"Did you get much sleep last night? Do you want to rest?" Carla stroked his hair and kissed the end of his nose.

"I could do with a little 'mattress time' now that you mention it..." Tom smirked and nibbled on her neck.

"I mean rest. As in sleep. You look tired, I want you to rest up. After that cough, which sounded nasty, I don't want you to lift a finger." Carla wriggled from his hold and out of the bed.

"But!"

"No buts. Or butts. One, I don't want you to exhaust yourself in any way. And two, you know I wont do that until the honeymoon. Cheeky."

"Drat." He pouted and pulled the covers over his head.

"Tom..." Carla tucked her long ebony hair behind her ears and held her elbows. This was always a sign that something was worrying her.

"What?" Tom sat up properly and beckoned for her to join him. Carla sat next to him and stroked his face gently.

"You promised me you wouldn't leave again. But you did...you broke your promise Tom..."

"I. I didn't have a choice. This was like the, last deal. If I did that last, erm, training session, then they would let me go. For good this time."

"I wish you weren't as good a trainer as you are." She cuddled into his side and let him run his hands through her hair.

"That won't happen again. I promise."

"You mean it this time?"

"I do." His stomach growled making them both laugh.

"Well, I guess that is your way of saying, 'can I have some breakfast'."

"Would you?"

"Sure. Cereal?" he was about to say yes, but his stomach roared louder.

"Could I have something more? Like eggs and bacon? I am starving." Carla rolled her eyes and smiled at him.

"Anything else sir?"

"Well...you could serve it to me, naked."

"Nice try. Points for effort. But 0 for attainment."

"Damn. At least I tried." He sighed and rested against the bed rest.

"You always try. And I will be right back hun."

"Carla!"

"Yes?" she lingered in the doorway, grateful for her husband's safe return.

"I love you." She ran to him and pressed her lips against his. She only pulled away from the passionate kiss when she couldn't breath, and when Tom seemed to get a little randy.

"I love you too honey bear. Now I am off to make you the best breakfast you have ever had." She giggled and skipped out the room. Everything was back to normal, just the way it should be.

But something was different. Something that wasn't there before. Something, that didn't belong there...but what could have happened to this quaint little setting, this cosy little house and this loving married couple, in the last 24 hours? What in this picture, didn't belong there?

"Damn!" Tom held his chest between his pecks and grit his teeth. He seemed to be burning from the inside, like a fire had started there, land growing into an inferno. But then, it subsided like it had never been there. "What was that?"


	3. Vow

Chapter 3 

For the rest of that day, Carla insisted that Tom lay in bed and she waited on him hand and foot. She did everything he asked...except for what he really wanted. But he could wait. He was patient. Even the following night he 'got none' and was content with just holding Carla in his arms. And Carla kissed his face and cheek all night. Just happy to have him back.

_The next day..._

"AAARRRR!" Tom sat bolt upright and held his chest tightly with both hands. The burning sensation from the day before had come back ten fold with a vengeance. He felt as though there was something driving a stake through his back and trying to stick a wedge between his lungs. Carla soon woke up and stroked his forehead, panicking.

"Tom? Tom what's wrong!" he arched his back and writhed with pain. "Ok, that's it. I'm calling the ambulance." She reached to get the side phone, but Tom grabbed her wrist.

"N...No need hun. I'm...ok." He panted; the pain subsided as quickly as it had come. "Pass me the phone." Carla slowly gave it over and watched as he got out of bed. He pulled on a pair of jeans and a red wife beater. "I need to make a call..." He didn't say who and simply left his wife in bed. Tom walked straight outside and sat on the front steps, grateful that it was only 3 in the morning. So no nosy neighbours to worry about. "Hi, it's me. Claws. Get me Agent Jackal, now."

"Yes sir." The phone beeped as he was passed through.

"Now this is more than a surprise. I leave you alone for once and you call me."

"So what does that tell you?"

"The shit has hit the pan and you need me to help you clean it up. What's happened?"

"I don't know." He looked around and leaned against the front beam.

"Well that's helpful."

"Look. After you dropped me off, everything was fine."

"Until?"

"Until my stomach growled really loudly. I have never been that hungry and I had a full meal on the boat with you guys before I got home."

"So you were hungry. So what?"

"So I brushed it off and my wife made me a full breakfast."

"And you rung me to tell me this...why?"

"That isn't the half of it. As she leaves me to go to the kitchen, I start to get these pains in my chest. Like someone was trying to rip my heart out. But it wasn't my heart. It was just under it."

"In your chest?"

"Yes."

"Below your heart, between your lungs and behind your pecks?"

"Yeah...how did you know that?"

"Never mind. Tell me more about these pains. Has it happened again?"

"Yeah this morning. But worse." Just remembering the searing pain in his chest made him run his hands over his front. "It was like a pick was trying to pull me apart. And it wasn't slowly, more like."

"Desperately?"

"I was going to say rigorously. But yes. You know more about this than I told you. You know what's happened to me, don't you?" As a sigh rasped over the phone, Tom didn't feel confident.

"I know, I think. But I can't be sure. Tell me, did anything...odd happen to you at the target? In the nest perhaps?"

"Other than you dragging me out of the nest, then no." Tom closed his eyes and opened them in a shot. "That crab. A crab like thing with spider legs tried to suffocate me."

"Thomas this is important. Did it hatch from an egg?"

"I don't know. It just came out of no where."

"Did it put anything down your throat?"

"What? What kind of."

"Thomas this is damn important! This could be a matter of life and death, your life and your death." He had never called him by his full name before. And now he called it him twice. The focus in his voice made him feel like he was under interrogation. All he could do was answer.

"Yes." There was a long silence. "What does that mean? Why does that matter? I cleaned up so it couldn't have given me any diseases and I got the bugger off so."

"I'm sorry."

"For what?" there was another silence and Tom couldn't take it much longer. "Damn it Jackal tell me!"

"Listen carefully as I can only say this once. That thing that open mouth kissed you, was what we like to call 'face huggers'. They are the biological Xenomorphic test tubes, programmed to hold the Alien embryo and keep it safe until it can me inseminated into a womb, or in their case, a host. When a living creature comes near an egg with a 'face hugger' inside, it wakes up, in a fashion, and hugs the face of the poor damned soul that just got too close. That's where the name comes from." It was all business now. "Next it 'inseminates' the embryo through a mouthpiece and down the throat of the victim. It doesn't let go until the embryo is safely in place and then just dies, letting the victim remove it."

"...So I'm the victim. The host. I have one of those bastards inside of me. But I don't have a womb, I'm male. So it can't grow...right?"

"Wrong Claws. So very, very wrong. They don't use wombs like we, and the rest of the animal kingdom do. They grow in the chests of the victims and 'chestate'."

"And what? Make sense man. This isn't funny!"

"I wasn't laughing. Chestation means to grow in the chest until mature. Then, they are born, bursting through the chest and killing the host instantly. If the poor bastard survives the birthing, they are eaten, to sustain the bugger until it can find another...piece of meat."

"Is that all we are to them, a piece of meat? A meal!"

"That, and a walking incubator for their young." Tom was silent for a moment, finally digesting what he was being told.

"How do I kill it?" he whispered down the phone, as if afraid that he would be heard. "How do I stop it?"

"Thomas..." he said his name again. "I'm sorry...but you don't." those words hit Tom so hard, he actually flinched. _'You don't? You mean..._

"You mean I'm stuck like this!" He jumped up on his front porch, one hand clenched by his side, the other holding the phone so tight, it creaked like it would break at any moment. "Alright you son of a bitch, this isn't a laughing matter Jackal. You tell me how to kill this fucker right now!"

"Stop shouting...you'll wake your wife up." At that he stopped, his seething breaths however, continued to rasp through his teeth.

"Then tell me how to stop this."

"Thomas, you don't. Now I'm really sorry, but this isn't something you can solve or remove." He started to sound quite frustrated now. "Look Claws, this is what you are going to do. You are going to tell you wife you have terminal cancer."

"Jackal-"

"You are going to tell her that is why you have pains, and that it has spread too quickly and too far to be detected or stopped."

"Jackal no." He begged down the phone, now leaning with one hand on the patio beam, looking very winded.

"You will give her that will I know you made, as a 'just encase' you didn't come home from you mission one time."

"J jackal."

"And damn it Claws, you are going to take that gun from you office draw, and you are going to drive out into the middle of nowhere, the desert. I know there is one about 2 hours drive from your house."

"Jackal...please..." Tom whimpered and ran a hand through his brown hair, stepping down to his drive.

"Claws...you have to do it."

"No, no there has to be another way. I could have surgery, drug me, shoot damn gamma waves through me, hell, shish kabob and skew the little bastard out of me!"

"Claws you are a trained agent. I know you are not afraid of death-"

"No but my wife is!" he screamed. "My wife worries herself close to death and nearly has a heart attack every time I leave this house! I swore to her that I would stop doings this, my shady job, and I meant it! That was the only fucking reason I went on that 'last job' in the first place! And now I get this!" he belted the beam with his fist, making it vibrate and his knuckles bleed. "Damn it Jackal, this isn't fair to her! She has me now, at last, and I will not do this to her! It would kill her!"

"YES IT WOULD!" he barked, and stopped Tom's rant. "If that thing is allowed to grow inside of you, alive, it will burst from you and kill her!"

"Tom...?" Tom span round on his heels, and saw Carla stood behind him, hugging the doorway as if half afraid of him. How long had she been stood there? How much had she heard?

"Would you really let that thing kill the woman you love, just to have a few more hours with her?" Tom heard his military better all too clearly, as he saw the most innocent sight before him. His darling newly wed wife, his dark haired angel with wild curly ebony locks, that perfect dark fringe and adorable freckles on her cheeks and nose. But he couldn't see her dimples, as she wasn't smiling. Her big sapphire blue eyes were misty with tears, and crystalline droplets were running slowly down her face. "Would you share your fate, with her?"

"Tom, wh what's happening? What's wrong?" she cupped her hands over her chest, and slowly stepped towards him.

"You have to make a choice Tom. For you, this isn't about your life or death. You are going to die, you know that now."

"Tom, please." She whimpered, a few steps away from him now. His face was in a frown, his own green eyes glazing over with grief.

"The choice you have to make, is does _Carla_ live, or die?" Tom closed his eyes, and turned away from her.

"You know the answer to that question." He spoke quietly.

"What answer? What are you talking about? Who are you talking to!" Carla screamed, distraught.

"Goodbye sir." Jackal was speechless. Tom had never called him sir. "You were a bastard." He chuckled. "But…thanks. If you hadn't have told me…thanks."

"Goodbye Soldier, Claws. I never felt safer in battle than with you. Even if you wanted to shoot me more than the enemy." Tom laughed weakly, and sighed.

"Farewell Jackal. I'll see you in Hell."

"May it be hot enough to get a tan. Goodbye Claws."

"Goodbye sir." And he hung up.

"Who were you saying goodbye to? I, I don't understand." Now he looked to Carla, who looked torn between running away, and running at him. But when he dropped the phone, and opened his arms, she had no decision to make. She ran into his arms and wept. Carla wasn't stupid; she understood at least _part_ of the one way conversation she heard.

"I…I don't understand. Tell me, God Tom tell me please." She sobbed, screwing her face up into his chest and fisting at his red wife beater for dear life.

"I think…we should go inside. It's early, we should go to bed."

"Tom."

"Damn I'm hungry." He led her inside, but she wouldn't stop crying. And when they got into the kitchen, she couldn't take anymore.

"TOM, DAMN YOU!" she thumped his back, and rested her forehead against it. "Damn you…"

"I love you Carla. I never regretted one moment of being married to you. Or before that." He said sincerely, and yet, the heartburn in his chest only seemed to get stronger.

"Oh Tom…what happened? You came home to me, and swore you wouldn't leave again. One last time, that's what you said." She pleaded her case, as he pulled a full carton of milk from the fridge.

"Carla I." He closed his eyes, and creased over his brow. He was defiantly having difficulty. _I have to tell her this, it isn't fair otherwise. I wouldn't want her to think I want to leave her. That just isn't fair_. _Not to her, not to Carla._

"Tom." All she was wearing was an overly big green woolly jumper, which hung off one shoulder, and a pair of denim shorts. The jumper being his. "Please it…well it sounded like…tell me it isn't what it sounded like." But she knew, he could tell she knew. _Well, not why, but still…_ he could see the comprehension in her deep eyes. "Tom…" he started to drink from the carton. "Tom…tell me you're not going to die." And he froze. This was it.

_Do I tell her the whole truth, a half-truth, or a complete utter lie?_ His lips were still sealed to the opening of the carton, as he looked over to his anxious wife. _She's barely 20 and she's going to be a widow…_ he placed the carton down slowly, his entire body language changing. He had realised before what he was going to have to do, to die, for her. Tom would die for her gladly, he loved her that much. But to tell her that, to tell her he was going to die. And then to try and drive off to cap himself to do it…

_I have gone into the deepest, darkest places to eradicate the same bastards that decided I would be a great walking incubator for the monster inside of me. I've faced Jackal, all forms of evil…and yet the thought of leaving Carla alone, to tell her I have to die…terrifies me._ "Tom." She begged, and held onto his wrist with both hands. "I love you, if you are in trouble I will pack up my bags and we can leave right now. If you are sick, we can go straight to the hospital and-"

"They can't help me." He could hear her gulp loudly. He sighed again, and yanked her into a fierce hug. This way, he could tell her, comfort her…and not have to see the horror or grief on her face. "I'm dying." There, he said it. All his professional life he had been told 'and you may die on this mission, it may be your last'. That is why he had an updated will, encase he never did quite make it home to his loving wife. Or girlfriend, as the case _used _to be. He left all his money, which was plenty, the house, everything he owned, he gave to her. She was his everything. She was all he had.

"…no…" Carla fisted at his red wife beater shirt, shaking her head vigorously. "No, you're lying!"

"Carla, I wish I was. I love you." She whimpered loudly. "I love you so much. But I was just told…" _that I have a mother fucking snake lizard thing growing inside of me. _"That I have terminal cancer."

"Radio therapy."

"No Carla. It's too far gone for that." She stepped back from him, as if he burned her. "I…I'm sorry."

"How long have you known?" She demanded. "How long have you kept this from me!"

"I just found out. It travelled so quickly it-"

"Stop it!" she screamed, and grabbed the carton of milk from the side. Carla thrust it down to the floor, where milk exploded everywhere. "Stop lying to me! Why do you lie to me!" Carla dropped to her knees, and cried into her hands. All Tom could do was kneel down on one knee next to her, and hold her as she wept. He held her for at least an hour, his shirt and chest soaked with her tears, and his own starting to flow. He memorised every sorrowful hiccup, the way her soft cheeks felt when he stroked them, even if there were wet with tears. "H h how long d do you-"

"Not long." As if on cue, he writhed with pain, arching entire body and falling backwards onto his back. He yowled with pain, clawing at his own chest and thrashing his head from side to side. Carla was beside herself. All she could do was envelope his head in her arms to her bosom, and rock him back and forth while he writhed like a man possessed. For her, she knew now what he was saying was true. The way his body snapped and convulsed like that…it wasn't natural.

His skin turned red with rushing blood flow, his mouth opened and bared in pain, fighting not to scream in agony. He was memorising her, he didn't want her to remembering him screaming in pain. Tom didn't want the sounds of his torture to haunt her any more than the image of him having a spasm in her arms.

After a while, his attack calmed down, the worst it had been yet, his skin on his chest red roar, and sweat beading his forehead. "I have to go." The pain still prickled at his chest, as it a warning that the next one, would be the last.

And his end.

Time was up.

_I'll be damned if I let it get her, no way in hell._ He got to his feet, but Carla grabbed his arm and wouldn't let him go.

"No, where are you going! I want to come with you!"

"You can't come with me where I'm going." He banged his fist on the wall by the stairs, just under the wedding photo, and one wooden panel slid to one side. There, he pulled out a golden eagle gun, and shoved it down the side of his jeans. Carla saw this and jumped him. Again, she was not stupid. "Carla I have to!"

"WHY!"

"Because there are certain sins and demons in this life that don't just haunt the mind." There was a moment of still, where her arms loosened and fell to her sides.

She knew he was going.

He was going and there was no stopping him.

And he would never come back.

"This…isn't fair…" the severity of the situation was just too much. "Tom…" He cupped her face and cocked his head to one side significantly. He always did that, with that gorgeous smile on his face.

"I love you. I want you to _always_ remember that." She choked a sob. "And if you ever want to move, don't feel you have to stay. Or if a guy comes along who is good to you, then-"

"Stop it!" she screamed, and threw herself at him until her arms circled tightly around his chest. "No, don't say it! I love you and I will never love anyone else!" her voice was starting to sound horse, her eyes red and puffy from crying so hard.

It wasn't fair. She was being forced to mourn for him in the space of a few hours of learning he was going to die.

"I just want you to be happy."

"Then don't die!" Carla pulled his face down and sealed their mouths together in a crashing explosion of fury. Tom wrapped his arms around her and poured all his love, all his desire and passion into that kiss, his last, ever kiss with the woman he loved. He thrust his tongue into her mouth, wanting to live this moment forever. Her tongue was so velvety soft against his own, her lips albeit swollen tender and loving, and just as feverish as his. His hands moulded her body, feeling her figure until he had the imprint of her shape in his mind. Long legs, curved hips, slim waist, flat stomach, normal shoulders, slender neck and an adorably rounded face. Her breasts were ample, and pressed tight against his chest. "Don't leave me." She begged. "We can go upstairs, and have sex right now." she sobbed. Tom cut her off with an insistent kiss, before placing another, more gentle kiss on her forehead.

"As much as you _know_ how much I want to make love to you…you know I can't."

"Why, why can't you! Why can't you stay!" She wept.

"Listen to me Carla." He held her hands together in his, and held them between their chests. "I swear to you, I will _always_ watch over you, protect you, and love you with all I am. Even after I leave today, I will still be with you. I would pass up heaven and an eternity of bliss, if only to see your beautiful face again. I love you that much Carla. And I'll never leave you."

"Never?" she sniffled. "You promise me?"

"I swear to you, I promise you, I vow to you. When I said till death do we part, I was lying. Because even in death I will never leave you."

"I will never leave you either Tom." Carla sobbed and fell into his loving embrace.

"Do what you must in life Carla. Be happy, be safe." Tears slugged down from his green eyes and into dark ebony hair. "I love you, my darling, beloved Carla."

"Oh Tom, I love you to." Carla rubbed her face into his chest, and he started to feel that burning sensation rise up from within his rib cage.

"I'll always be with you, whenever you need me, I'll be there. I swear to you. That is my oath. I would even make it in blood if I had the time."

"Then let's." distraught, Carla left him only to pull a small chopping knife from the kitchen, and return to him. "Both of us." When she looked up at him like that, a crestfallen angel, he couldn't refuse her. She held up her left palm, squeezed her eyes shut, and made a deep slice into it. She yelped, but finished the slash. Tom took the knife, never hesitating, and making the same deep slice into his own right palm. They interlocked their fingers, and squeezed as the pooling blood mixed, as did their tears. They rubbed their faces together, lips tracing pictures of the other's face for them to visit for eternity. Even though Tom's eternity wasn't as long as Carla's. "There." She whimpered. Her voice was very shaky from grief. "Now you will never leave me."

"Never." Unable to stop himself, he stole one last desperate kiss, before tearing his hand back and running from the house.

If he didn't leave now, he knew he wouldn't be able to.

A grieving cry of anguish echoed after him, waking up most of the street, as he jumped into his sport's car and screeched down the street. Tears may have blurred his vision, but he sped on. Visions of his treasured wife crying in despair wracked at his heart. But he also remembered all the cheeky smiled she pulled, her playful and imaginative nature. The way she was always so open minded to everything, and was as smart as they came. She was so kind, so tender. And such a warm hearted creature. Carla would never harm a soul.

Past the bus stop quaint little town he had come to call home, down the motorway, deserted due to the early hour, and turned off only after 3 hours drive, and so far out in the wasteland of the desert, he would have died out there with or without the Xenomorph inside him.

Oh yes, that.

"Alright you mother fucker." He said shakily, his breathing erratic like his heart beat, and his chest burning with a foreboding promise of things to come if he didn't hurry. "If I'm gonna die, I'm sure as hell going to take your scaly ass with me!" he jumped out the car, pulling the golden eagle from the back of his jeans in the same motion, and pointed the gun at his head. "No host, no life support, no fucking lizard spawn." The cold metallic nose of the gun pressed at his right temple, ready to pull the trigger. He stood there, watching the sun rise, knowing it to be his last. "Good bye Carla." He could still feel the blood from his cut seeping over the handle of the gun. He briefly thought Carla would have to life with a scar on her hand for the rest of her life sadly, before he thought nothing at all.

_Carla…_


	4. The begining to everything

"…we need you to identify the body Mam." Carla was strangling on her own sobs into the arms of her mother. She didn't think he would do this. She knew he took the gun and what he was going to do, but to go somewhere like the desert and leave his body to lay around until someone found him? And it was so soon.

After Tom left her, she didn't eat, she didn't sleep, she didn't even move from the couch, staring at the blank TV screen. She had sat there all through the day, and all through the night. Her fatigue was obvious, rings around her face, which was still red raw from crying, and her blank like state. These things were the first things to be jotted down as the local police force knocked at her door this morning. It was barely an hour later than when Tom had left her the day before, 25 hours ago, when she was greeted with the news of his death.

Yes, she already knew he would be dead, but she thought she would have had _time_ to prepare herself for it. Not get thrown back onto the wagon of hysterics all over again. Her emotions erupted and she felt very unwilling on this rollercoaster ride of cruel despair.

When he two officers had informed her of his death, and asked her for her to identify the body, she felt stone cold inside.

They wanted her, _her_, the victim's WIFE, to go and look at his dead corps barely a day after she had last seen him alive?

Of all the insensitive things you could have asked her to do, they had to ask her that.

She didn't care if it was procedure or if they were just doing their job. This was a life they were talking about, her husband. The man she loved.

And they wanted to shove her at his cold, lifeless body which no doubt will be laid out on a merciless metal slab of a table at the morgue, cut to tatters just to verify that he _had _in fact died from a gunshot wound. She didn't even want to _know_ where he had shot himself. He wanted to remember him as he was, alive, in one piece. Not blue faced and prone.

Dead.

It was the final slap in her face to hear them tell her the truth.

He was dead, gone.

No more waking up to snuggle with him.

No more giving him a kiss before work, or welcoming him back to her open arms.

No more having him surprise her at work in her lunch break, just to see her smiling face.

No more romantic dinners in shabby little places that seemed magical when he was there.

No more running around the house when no one was looking and having fun in general.

No more cuddling in bed and watching a movie.

No more cleaning up after him.

No more giggling as he tried to push his luck with her, or smiling when he respectfully accepted he would have to wait.

…now she wished she had jumped him from the first moment she saw him. She wanted to do so much more with him before they died. Go to Paris, see London, have house parties, children…

But now she would never know what that would be like. She would never make him happy with a daughter to push on a swing and spoil rotten, or a son to scrap and play football with. He always liked football. He never missed a game if he could help it.

She had left the officers stood at the door and ran to the phone, calling her mother and weeping down the phone for her to come pick her up. She didn't want to be alone in the car with the unfeeling officers, or drive in that blue sport's car they had returned to her…not after…

And here she was, at the morgue despite her pleas not to go, in her mother's arms and looking at a body covered in a white sheet.

Beneath that cover, she would see the stoic face of her loving husband…

…who _was_ her loving husband.

She was a widow, at age 20, a widow and would never know what life could have been like with the man she loved. Because she knew she would never love anyone else, nor would she stop loving Tom. But…she couldn't look. She just couldn't.

"Mrs Black, we really need you to identify-"

"Oh stop it! Can't you see you are upsetting her!" Carla's mother spat, cradling her vulnerable daughter to her bosom. She had short curly black hair, ebony like her daughter's, and brown eyes that were narrow, and sternly looking down at the officers persistently talking to her.

"Look Mam, we have to verify who the victim is before we can close the case."

"Close!" Her mother sounded scandalised. She looked like a bad character out of those murder dramas on the afternoon TV, dressed in her old cottage style blue log sleeved dress and flower hat. But she was her mother, and acted as the support that she _really_ wanted from her husband.

But he couldn't give her that support right now, could he?

The officer sighed, pushing his blue uniform hat up his head a little more. "Aren't you even going to investigate his death first!"

"Mum-"

"We already know the cause of death. Death by suicide." Carla cringed and whimpered loudly against her mother.

"He didn't commit suicide!" she screamed. "He didn't want to leave me!" she sobbed into her mother's chest, unable to face anyone right now.

_oh my poor baby. She is far too young to deal with this._ Her mother rubbed her back.

"It was a self inflicted gunshot wound through the head. Instant death." The younger inexperienced officer was given a reprimanding look from his superior, who then stepped in.

"My name is Inspector Glanter. We are ever so sorry for your loss Mrs Black."

"You don't understand my loss, _sir_." She reared round. How _dare_ they try to relate to her! Like they actually _understood_ what she was feeling! _She_ didn't understand how she felt right now, other than a huge chaotic mess of grief, sorrow, despair, anger, and helplessness.

And if _she herself_ couldn't sort herself out, those men had _no right_ to try and do it their selves!

From the simply look of fury on her face, he put his hands up and stepped back. "I meant no assumptions Mrs Black. But I do realise this is a very hard time for you. If you would just identify the body, you can go home. You have been more than helpful enough."

"Y you're not going to write him off as a suicide are you? He had to; he was in so much pain."

"He was?" Glanter opened his pad and started taking notes. "And what medications was on, and for what illness?"

"He said Cancer." Her mother gasped. "It travelled so quickly, he couldn't be treated. I held him Inspector." He looked up from his notes, to see the saddest sight he had ever had to deal with on his job. And she wasn't the first one. A broken woman. "I held him as he writhed in my arms, biting back screaming in my face and turning blood red, raw red. He thought he was going to explode." She whimpered in horror, and turned back to her mother. "He, he was, in s so much, pain." She struggled through sobs. "N no one could help him. So he ended it."

"You _knew_ he shot himself?" Glanter glared at his younger partner. _Idiot!_

"Yes! Yes I KNEW! He was with ME before he left!" she cried hard into her mother's embrace, and didn't see a coroner whisper something about he autopsy to the inspector, that made his sharp brown eyes widen in shock. He swiftly turned to the table, and lifted the sheet over his head, and then lifted it down to his waist, hiding him from view to the rest of the room.

"My God…"

"What?" Clara hiccupped.

"You said this man had cancer. Was it in his chest by any chance?"

"Yes, I think so." She sniffled.

"That will be all for today Mrs Black. But don't leave the area, I will need to visit you another time, when you've been able to prepare yourself for the identification." Inspector Glanter never looked away from the body, and dismissed everyone, but his partner. Carla's mother took her home, and stayed with her, not wanting to leave her poor widowed daughter alone.

Glanter however, called the Coroner back in. "Has anyone touched the body other than yourself in the examination?"

"No sir."

"And your honest opinion?"

"…the cause of death was most certainly by a bullet penetrating the skull through the right temple, and firing clean through the other side. The bullet has been recovered, as has the gun he was found with. I wonder if a fight happened first, as there is a deep laceration on his right palm." The inspector lowered the cover, and watched the Coroner turn the palm over. "Very fresh. It had barely started to clot at the time of death. I put that at any time between 4 and 7 yesterday morning. I have taken samples to narrow the date further."

"So if this cut is minor, and the bullet I what killed him…" Glanter held his cubby chin. "Then who broke open his rib cage?"

Oh yes. Gaping open for all to see was the body's upper chest cavity. The bone of the rib cage had been snapped and stood at unnatural angles, like it had been pried open forcefully.

"That's what troubles me. No one did."

"I don't follow you Dr."

"Well, according to my analysis, which confuses even me, the bones were not pulled, but pushed." He thought for a moment. "When someone brakes into a house through a smashed window, you can tell whether they broke in or out depending on which direction the glass shattered when it was broken. Right?"

"Yes." Glanter couldn't take his eyes away from the mangled chest. It wasn't as if he hadn't seen death before, he had. He had transferred here from the city simply to avoid constant death. But the sight of that _empty_ chest, it was sickening.

"Well I can do the same. See this." He picked up a wooden tool that resembled a large lollypop stick, used in moving flesh around. "I'm going to break this like it was the rib." He held it horizontally. "he put his fingers on the outside, facing Glanter, and his thumbs on the ends of the inside, facing himself. "If I push hard enough like this, the wood will break and splinter inwards, and in theory, cut _into_ the body, before being removed or pried open. But bones are not like doors on hinges, they break one way and then if broken the other way, they come clean off. But Mr Black's ribs are still partially attached, and broken _out of_ the body. So instead of the pressure being applied onto the ribcage like so." He snapped the wooden tool towards his chest, it doing exactly what he predicted. "Mr Black's ribcage broke like so." He picked up another one, placed his thumbs on the inside but in the middle of the stick, and his fingers on the ends on the outside of the stick. He broke it, and the splinters and breaks were in the opposite direction than before.

But the same direction as the bones in Mr Black's ribcage.

"So are you telling me…"

"That no one broke _into_ Mr Black's ribcage."

"But someone broke out." The coroner nodded.

"I have never seen anything like it. But that is the only logical way to explain such a bizarre injury. No weapon could ply the chest cavity open without leaving distinctive marks, and the same applies to human hands. I don't know what else to tell you Inspector. But after this man died, very soon after-"

"Something very fishy happened to our Mr Black." The Inspector concluded, beginning to write everything down in his note book. "I don't think I can honestly close this case until I find out who tampered with the body and why. And how."

"I understand. You have my number if anything else turns up. Inspector." He bid him farewell, as Glanter had already started to leave. "Oh Inspector Glanter?"

"Yes Dr?"

"I checked Mr Black's medical record."

"And?" he asked with interest, his pen poised over his pad.

"His last physical was last week at the local doctor's surgery. He was as fit as a fiddle. Fitter."

"No cancer?"

"No cancer. And no traces of there ever being cancer."

"And could he have developed it from nothing, to killing him direly in the space of a week?"

"Highly unlikely, in my medical opinion, inspector."

"Anything else?"

"There is one more thing." He cleared his throat. "His chest cavity has empty."

"I noticed." He grimaced.

"It shouldn't be." Glanter blinked, putting his large coat on, and a brown hat on his head of mousy brown hair.

"What?"

"There are no lungs, no heart, and half of the digestive system is missing to. And _this_ is very disturbing." Glanter shuddered as the good Dr took out a tray he had obviously hidden, and showed him a long thick piece of flesh. "This is Mr Black's diaphragm. Or what is left of it. Notice the missing piece?" Glanter had to cover his mouth as he saw BITE marks in it.

"He was out there for over 24 hours." He tried to compose himself. "Coyotes could have-"

"Grown two sets of teeth lager than the average lion?"

"…this just keeps getting weirder and weirder." He wrote everything down as the Doctor began to return the Diaphragm to the draw he took it from, for later use. "Thank you, I'll keep you informed." Glanter stormed out of the morgue and into his car, his junior partner waiting for him. "Harradine, we have a case."

"What? The suicide?"

"Trust me Harradine, if you'd heard what _I_ just heard, and seen what _I _just saw, you wouldn't believe it was _just_ a suicide. No no, something far more _sinister_ happened to our Mr Black than simply shooting himself from cancer. Cancer, that he did not have, nor did he ever have."

"The wife was lying."

"Hmmm, possible. But I doubt it. In the report I read before we got here, there was evidence of high adrenaline and activity in a lobe in his brain that activated upon physical stress. Luckily the bullet didn't smash straight through it."

"So…"

"So Mr Black _was_ in pain for some reason." He thought, putting his key into the ignition. "But from Cancer? I think not. And I don't believe Mrs Black knew he was lying to her."

"You think she was hoodwinked?"

"I don't think she knew of the true reason for his attack she spoke of, no. but I intend to find out."

"Is this officially a homicide case then?"

"Until proven otherwise, yes."

"You _really _think this is a murder case sir?" Glanter looked down at his pimply faced junior partner. _Where do they pick these kids up from?_ He sighed.

"Yes, kid, I _do_ think this is a murder case. I definitely smell smoke. And where there is smoke, there is most certainly fire." _I just hope we don't get burned. This has the potential to be nasty. I didn't want to admit it…but it looked like something busted lose from inside Black, and then ate whatever was missing from his chest. and left a hefty bite in his diaphragm. But that's impossible, right?_

"Now you just sit down and I'll get you a nice cup of tea."

Carla smiled, drying her nose on a tissue as her mother left to the kitchen. _Oh really mother. Tea? Is that supposed to make me feel better?_ In truth, nothing would ever make Carla feel better. She had lost her husband, her other half. She felt like half a person. _Half a person…I certainly feel broken._ She sniffled, her eyes watering once again. "There, now you just drink this herbal tea and it will clear your nasal ways right up." She said with a cheery smile. _Oh really mother._

"Thank you."

"You know…you never told me he had cancer dear. If I had known then-"

"I didn't know myself until yesterday. Before he-" but she caught herself. Before she broke down into tears again. "I would have told you."

"I know dear. Oh, I'm so sorry." Oh great, her _mother_ broke down into tears too. That was _not _what she needed.

"Mother."

"Oh you poor dear! My baby, only 20 and widowed! Oh my poor, poor baby."

"Oh mummy." And she started off again. _Thank you very much mother. I had just stopped. _ She then scolded herself. _Listen to yourself Carla. You're taking your anger out on your mother, who is actually here to help you! _"Thank you for coming." Carla held her back, taking much needed comfort from the embrace.

"Oh, not even God himself could have stopped me!" Carla laughed with a hiccup, and kissed her mother's cheek.

"Thank you so much."

"Oh my darling." She cupped her daughter's face. "Do you want me to stay with you?"

"No, no I just-"

"Need to be alone? I understand this will be hard for you. I lost your father too, but I was well into my 40's when it happened. More than _twice_ your age with _twice_ the life experiences. You are still just a baby to life yet. This isn't fair on you." she sighed heavily. "And you look worn out." Carla nodded, her eyes dropping with effect.

"I haven't slept since he left." She squeaked, and buried her face into a fresh tissue. She had gone through three boxes just today. Luckily she had thought ahead last week and bought two jumbo sets, in the sale. But never did she know the reason she would be using them, or she wouldn't be bloody shopping, she would have been with her husband! And spent every penny on medical treatment, not the Tesco sale!

"What! Then you get right to bed before you collapse of exhaustion." Her mother herded her upstairs and refused to leave until she dressed into her nightshirt. That consisted basically of a large man's T shirt…_Tom's_ T Shirt. It was orange with an army trooper printed on like a cartoon, with the words, 'I'm a super trooper' written in a speech bubble. _Oh God…it still smells like him._ Her mother caught her tearing up again, and hurried her to bed. "I'm going to stay with my sister. She's a lot closer, only 15 minutes away. If you need me, don't hesitate to call me sweetie. Oh I love you so much." She gave her daughter a fierce hug, and kissed her head. "Do try to get some sleep."

"I'll _try_." Carla wore a brave smile, and let her mother to show herself out. Once she left, her departure announced by the creaking of the new door, Carla began sobbing hysterically. All her woes spilling over the edge of her control and were jerked from her shaking body in waves and waves of trembling tears and sobbed words. These words came one at a time, not being able to steady her breathing long enough for a full sentence.

Carla kept asking why, why, why. She asked and prayed to every God she knew of, asking the same question over and over again, as if hoping at least _one_ of them would answer her.

But no one answered.

Carla sobbed, almost smothering herself in her pillow in her grief. She did _try_ to sleep, and hoped that once her distraught fit of tears ended, once she calmed, she might fall unconscious and get that vital sleep that way. But for now, she cried.

And cried.

And cried.

………

Did you ever wonder how consciousness started off?

You know, in the begging.

Did you think wow, bam, everything was and everything had thought?

Hardly.

Both the Scientist and Religious community would say you were wrong.

The Religious community would say that God (or Gods in some cases) created the world and the universe, and one of the common beliefs is that he created the world in 7 days, and then humans on the 6th day, the last day being the day of rest.

So in all, 6 days of hard work.

So from the religious point of view, there was no intelligent consciousness until the last day of creations, right? So not all at once or suddenly.

And from the scientific point of view, they would argue that only through evolution did the tiny single cellular organism split over thousands of years, becoming a multi-cell organism, and then usual frog and fish coming out the water and growing into an ape, and then Homo sapiens.

Us.

So, to recap.

Hard cold evidence and spiritual faith both prove that consciousness started slowly, coming on over time and later on in the grand scheme of things.

Did you expect a miracle when it comes to creation?

Doesn't a baby take around 9 months growing before it is ready to be born?

Raw food is raw, cooked food is cooked.

But the space between something being raw, and something being ready, takes time.

Time.

See?

Do you see what I'm saying?

Consciousness needs _time_.

The physical might be there, like the big bang and the holy earth, or the foetus and potato.

But the consciousness doesn't come until the very end.

And when you do become conscious, who are you really?

Isn't that the question that philosophers have been contemplating since the beginning of consciousness?

Who am I?

So it is pure logic that that would be the first question on the mind of any mature, intelligent sentient being.

Right?

………………………

………………………………

………………………………………

…………………………………………………_who am I?_

AN: Another chapter for you. I hope you like it, and I hope I didn't give _too_ much of a clue away at the end…

Well, I'll be updating soon as long as I get reviews!

Wink wink, nudge nudge, say na more say na more

lol

From

Draguna Doragon


	5. and it starts

Chapter 5

_Who am I?_

_Where am I?_

_Where is this?_

_What is that smell?_

_What is smell?_

_How did I know that was a smell?_

_And touch, I can feel. _

_Sounds, tastes, smells, feelings…_

_What are these things?_

_And why is there nothing inside…emptiness?_

Heat from the late afternoon beat down in hot, humid waves. The muggy sensation all around, and the constant bombardment of harsh, unforgiving winds of sand and dust, filth being thrown and spinning all around…

…is that woke him.

_Him. What does that mean? What is a him? A he? Male. What is it to be male? How do I know what male is? And why don't I know what female is?_

_Unpleasant._

_I don't like this feeling._ He finally moved. Only slightly.

Barely even distinguishable. _…hands. I have hands. I know they are hands. I feel them._ Again he moved, flexing and clenching all five slender digest on each hand. He brought them closer to where he _felt_ he was, and felt more sensations. He ran his 'hands' over his chest, the claws at the ends of his fingers drumming slowly over the rims of his strong ribcage. It was strange for him at first, as if he expected to feel something else. Softer. More tender. Weaker…

But was there supposed to be something else here? Was there a _before_ for there to be anything else?

Different.

Was he different? He _felt_ different. But then again, he didn't knew _what_ he felt.

He felt Strong, smooth, hard, slick…slim.

_Those are attractive things. I am attractive._

He concluded, pushing his 'hands' into the surface beneath him. Grains of dirty sand, damp, crept into every crevasse, every nook and cranny of his elegant, feline hands, framed by a powerful bone structure. But there was something over that, something even stronger. He _knew_ it was important, something that made him feel stronger, and safer. _Safer than softness. Stronger than tender flesh…_

Flesh. Did he have flesh? He couldn't feel any.

Slowly he straightened his arms, lifting himself from the filth he had woken up in.

He rose up, emerging from the scum of the earth, feeling alive and strong.

_I am strong._

But he no sooner fell back to the floor with a thud. But he was not harmed.

He felt something, further away than his firm chest, his muscular arms and powerful hands.

There, it moved again.

Slowly, 'it' lifted from the floor, and he seemed to be attached to it.

But he couldn't understand that.

He gradually pushed at the ground until he rolled onto his back. His hands rested on his chest, and he felt uncomfortable. Something from his back was lodged awkwardly into the sand beneath him. Four somethings.

But he couldn't reach them to touch them.

That is what he wanted to do, touch every part of him, feel who he was, hoping it would tell him all he needed to know about himself.

His hands slid down his sleek front, to a agile waist and framed pelvis. Two large things were coming out of it, like his arms.

As if on cue, they moved of their own accord. Then of his.

Clawed toes, ten in all, scratched and shifted sand beneath them, as clawed as his hands. The long appendages bent too, bringing his feet closer to his pelvis.

_Feet, they are feet. _ He then brought his hands flat to the ground by his sides, and pushed himself up, until his pelvis was at a right angle to his upper body.

Once stabilised, he continued his exploration down his legs, starting with his rippling, thick, powerful thighs, feeling the touch of muscles, and strange protective skin.

Yes, he felt it protected him.

And he _thought_ it was skin.

The word skin was the one that came to mind.

He then curved his hands over solid, boney knees, and he bent them upwards. He could then drop his hands smoothly down the rest of his legs and to his feet. There were four toes in the right places, he thought, on each foot. But there was also one on his heel. This confused him almost as much as the long appendage leading from between this legs, skeletal, with a sharp spear like end to it. He somehow made it lift up, flicking at the end like he would a finger.

For some reason, he didn't like that. He didn't like the log thing coming from him, or the way his toes were.

But this was his body. Why shouldn't he like parts of his body?

Rain.

The moist taste in his mouth was certain.

It was going to rain.

He knew what rain was, _somehow._

He could smell it too. Along with the crisp smell of dry heat, and rotting flesh.

Flesh, that word again.

That word scared him, but it also excited him to no end.

The strange thing was, he didn't know why. He didn't know a lot of things.

Smell.

Those smells had come to him, to his mind, but he couldn't remember sniffing for them.

It was like they just appeared.

No, he smelt them, he had to have. Right through his nose…

He brought his hands instinctively to his nose…and didn't feel one.

Somehow he had collected an image in his mind of what one would look like, feel like, and couldn't find one.

Oh but he had finally touched his face.

And again, he was confused.

He felt a mouth.

He liked that, something he should have. Something _certain._

But it still felt _different._ But there had never been a _different._

He felt his jaws, sharp, pointed.

No wonder he liked flesh, he was carnivorous. Finding sensation there, he opened his mouth, and got this sudden, wet feeling where he sensed the rain.

_Tongue. It's called a tongue._ Again, the words just appeared to him.

He slowly slid the fleshy stalk out of his mouth, waiting to feel the soggy tip on his waiting fingers.

But it never came.

Instead, he felt something solid, and it opened!

He felt his large jaws, his mouth, his thick skin at each side to stop it from falling into two, but that _thing_ inside it.

It was bizarre to him.

He had another set of teeth, _another_ mouth on the end of what he assumed was still called a tongue.

Undecided whether he liked this discovery, he withdrew it back inside with such a force, he almost fell off balance.

Intrigued by this, he drove it out with a sucking sound, opening and closing his smaller set of teeth, before letting his second mouth retreat back inside his larger one.

He felt strong again, powerful.

That was a weapon. He had a weapon.

His hands moved on from his mouth, and onto a long, smooth dome, attached to his head with a rim running around the circumference of his head. Just above his mouth. He traced the vaulted shape of his head, shocked it was so big.

Something else he found 'out of place'.

He froze.

Something was moving.

Something close.

_Kill it._

He sprang to his hands and feet and bounded off to the sound, hearing it again.

Once more, and it never chirped again.

_Strange, why did I do that?_ He thought, as he recoiled the very point of that _alien_ tail, that disgusting appendage from something hard. He brought the tip to his mouth, and before he even opened it he could smell the _thing_ he had killed.

Yes, it had been alive, he felt it.

Slowly, he looked around.

Sight, at last sight.

He had touched, smelt, tasted, and heard now.

Now he could see.

_What a…dead place_.

There was wastelands all around him, withered and shrivelled trees with no leaves, half falling over from its crumbling roots. The sand was a dirty orange brown, clumped in some places, loose in others.

The heat around him was slowly fading away, being replaced by a cool breeze.

_Night. Night is coming._

It was so quiet, sat against the large rock formation he had killed the little creature against.

He watched as lots of brilliant lights twinkled in the darkness above him. There were so many of them, hanging there, like they were just waiting for something. Why didn't they come crashing down? What held them up there?

The most impressive one, was the round large one. It outshone all of the other ones. Maybe it was their leader? Maybe it told them to wait there, ordered them to hold off their attack on this baron pit of dirt until it saw fit.

Like a true ruler…royalty.

_Like a Queen._

It was peaceful, despite having killed 5 more of the weak little things with four legs and thin wings. The last one he squashed beneath his hand, feeling its insides ooze out of its body and seep between his fingers.

He liked it.

It felt powerful to know he was destroying something. But he also felt disappointed. It was so small, so weak, so easy. If only it was bigger.

He looked up at the moon again, not knowing its name, and stared at it happily.

_Should I be tired? Should I sleep? Or should I move again? I did it before, I could do it again._

He coiled his masterful legs beneath him, and rose up onto them.

He was annoyed then, when he couldn't straighten his back vertically. It arched instead, his newly accepted tail waving behind him slightly for balance. His legs were bent too, and he didn't like that either. His arms bent forward, his hands drooping like he didn't know what to do with them, and he looked around him.

Everything looked the same. If he went somewhere, where would he go to? Did he even want to leave this place?

_Yes._

He needed to leave. He had to be somewhere else.

One foot first, clumsily padding at the floor like a foal, and unsteadily brought the next one after it. He moved his tail to counter the movement of which ever leg he was moving, until he was running, bounding, pouncing and leaping up onto the side of the mountain side. his sharp claws dug into the rocky surface like water, but stayed there, secure encase he needed to perch there, or hide.

Or attack.

He jumped down, and instinctively walked on all fours. This was comfortable, he could practice on two legs again later.

Odd thing that.

What he felt _should_ feel natural, didn't. And what _did _feel natural, _shouldn't._

He started walking, his angular body curving and swaying instinctively as he walked, for quicker, lighter movements. Slowly, his footsteps became softer, and softer, until they were silent. Like the rest of him.

_I'm going somewhere…why? Where am I going? Why am I going?_

He hissed abruptly, recoiling like he had been attacked. He lifted his right hand, expecting to see something cut into it, blood, even a scratch at the least…

…but there was nothing.

Just the smooth, beautiful perfection of his dark hand.

_But I felt it…the long cutting feeling down my palm…_ he ignored it, the feeling having gone.

He continued on, heading towards the smell of oil, gas, strange fumes and meat…

Hunger.

He moaned.

Flesh, wet and juicy.

Meat, tough and raw…

…skin, soft and tender.

Blue eyes, loving in their caress.

Lips, petal soft and delicious on his tongue.

These thoughts suddenly stopped him in his tracks.

He _smelt_ meat. He _knew_ it was there. But those other strange things? Skin? Eyes? _Blue_ eyes? Lips that were soft? His lips weren't soft, they were tough. His skin wasn't soft, it was lean. It wasn't skin, it couldn't be.

It was armour.

He shook his head, and pressed on.

_Blue eyes?_

He saw them, in his mind. Bright, loving…

He stopped again.

He couldn't _smell_ blue eyes, they didn't have a scent. But he could see them! And he _knew _them!

Is that why he had to leave his waking spot? To see those blue eyes?

He looked over his shoulder, gazing at the mighty Queen shining down on him, ruling over her smaller twinkling subjects.

_Is she a Queen to? A Blue eyed Queen?_

He seemed pretty desperate to get to her.

_She must_ _be important. I felt so empty before I started walking. Walking this way. _

_Maybe I didn't need to be able to smell Blue eyes to know she is this way. Maybe I know she is this way._

She.

_So that is what it is to be female. Loving, tender, soft and weak…and I am male. Strong, hard and powerful. Is she my Queen? Am I to protect her?_

The thought of having a Queen seemed to jolt something into him, an urgency like nothing he felt since he first came into being.

_Queen, I know that word. It is good…but bad._ He screwed his face up, hissing slightly as he quickened his pace.

He hated that word, deep down. And yet he loved it with all he was.

Hate.

Love.

He felt them both.

He felt those things about himself too.

He loved his arms, hands, chest, legs, and mouth.

He hated his claws, ribs, tongue, eyeless head, and tail.

He hated, and loved himself.

But he _knew_ how he felt about those Blue eyes, dancing and singing in his mind's eye.

He loved them.

Wholly and truly.

_That_ is why he had to move, wake up, get up, move on.

He had to find those blue eyes.

And he had to go _there_ to find them.

On the horizon, light dawning slowly behind it, was something very different to the wastelands he was surrounded with upon waking.

The mountains were shiny, catching the young light, rectangular, tall, but slim.

Like him.

He scampered towards it, breaking out into a run.

Those blue eyes were getting clearer, those foul smells getting stronger but always bearable thanks to those strange four curved tubes, short oddly, but still important somehow.

He started to see more than just eyes.

He started to see _things_ in his mind. And then saw them around him.

He saw a large oak tree with ribbons attached to the branches, whipping at each other in the early wind.

And he passed one just like it.

He saw a dank grey flat thing, much like that under his feat, with a great chunk missing out of the middle of it.

And he saw one just like it up ahead, scuttled over himself slightly, but turned his body at the last second to speed round the corner and leap over it, heading on.

Familiarity.

He had been noticing so many differences about himself, the place he had woken up, and only _now_, in this strange place did he notice things that seemed oddly familiar.

His felt something large deep inside his chest thumping against its restraints, getting faster and faster as he himself ran all out, covering miles in leaps and bounds at a time.

_My heart._

He finally skidded to a stop, slinked up a tree, and nestled safely within the green body of the branches. The first tree he saw was naked compared to this one, lush and green.

Why had he stopped? Why hadn't he carried on running down the street?

"…oh God." His long head snapped suddenly to one side, thanks to his long muscular neck, and peered closer to the edge of his green cover. "Oh God…hiccup." That sound echoed through his head, being processed at a rate he couldn't understand. Who is this God? What is making this sound? Why had he stopped _here_!

He was getting angry at all these unanswered questions, and bared his fangs hissing quietly. "Shut up puss puss." He cocked his head to one side, letting the muffled movements from the large hollow mountain next to the tree ripple over to him, and create such an image he was stunned.

She was tall.

She had messy, curly ebony tendrils coming from her head, skin that looked _far_ too soft to be safe, pale. Not dark like his at all.

And she had strange _things_ hanging off her heavily. He could see her cream coloured calves, her entire two legs and most of her two arms.

He had two arms. Two leggs.

But that orange _thing_. He didn't like it. He wanted her to take it off.

Her face was oddly red. He didn't know how he knew this. It could naturally be that sore colour.

_No…no it isn't._

It was as if he had stared at that face before for years, the way he recognised every dimple he _couldn't_ see on her cheeks, every twinkle that _wasn't_ in her eyes.

And he was angry again.

He knew those things _should_ be there, but they were missing.

Like his nose.

_She_ had a nose. He could see it. Just like the one he saw in his head earlier. But nicer, smaller. Albeit redder.

He slinked along a thick branch of the tree, creeping every so closer. He then lowered to it, looking much like a relaxed panther in posture, but kept his head up, alert encase the _female_ did anything he should know about.

And she turned.

She looked right out of that small hole in the wall, and stared.

But she didn't seem to see him, hidden within the bushy leaves. She just reached with her long slender arms above her small oval head, scratched at her head with one hand, and pulled that orange abomination off at last.

He couldn't stop his lips from parting, and his head from lowering onto his hands, which were placed one over the other on the branch. His chin rested there, and allowed all the light and sounds of his surroundings to reflect to his mind's eye just what she was doing.

This creature was not like him at all.

She had large curves than him, no ridged bones in sight, no armour, a cream colour, poor for camouflaging, delicate hands that looked so easy to break, a slim waist, they both had that, but hers was more smooth than his, curved in every way. She had the soft outline of ribs visible though, close to a similarity, but she also had two large mounds of tender flesh hanging happily from her chest. He ran a hand over his hard, flat chest, and cocked his head to one side, looking at hers. With each slight movement as she pushed a white stick in her mouth over and over again, these same lumps bounced and jiggled gently, but she didn't seem to mind. They had dark peaks to them, protruding outwards.

Her neck was slim, but smaller than his. And not as muscular. Her face of course was smaller also, and she had fur on her head, and at the junction of her thighs. Less there than on her head, however.

He found himself staring here, seeing soft pink folds hiding beneath tresses of curly dark hair.

She turned, spiting something white out of her mouth.

Resin perhaps?

She then started putting some more _things_ over her fragile body. First something that hardy looked to have any practical use, barely covering the front and back of her pelvis, showing the gorgeous curve of her backside, and he couldn't understand it at all. The next _thing_ he understood. They held her mounds in place, they had a supportive function. And they seemed to have wiring in them, holding her firmly in place.

He approved of this, but at the same time wanted her to take it off again. He couldn't imagine why.

Then she pulled up a sleeve of thin black over each leg, and over her lower regions. He assumed this was for camouflage, being close enough to his own colouring. Then she pulled up a light, blossom flower pink skirt and buttoned it into place. But that was a light colour! What was the point of the dark leg sleeves for camouflage, if she is just going to wear light noticeable colours over the top?

He then watched as she then fastened a matching long sleeved shirt with fold over cuffs, and a triangle collar. She then put a slightly darker suit jacket over the top, and buttoned that up as well.

She was more convincing without those things covering her up! Now she was more NOTICEABLE. He had to stop her before she was seen like that!

For some reason, he started to think she would get attacked for being so weak and flimsy. But moments later she walked out another hole in the wall, further down, and was wearing pink high heel shoes.

_At least she has something hard and spiky to protect her feet with! _

She opened up a shiny red thing, and stopped.

_Don't go in it. Don't let it swallow you!_ his claws were digging into the branch, teetering on the edge of staying, or pouncing on the offending thing and yanking that stupid female out of danger's way!

But she must have thought the same as him, and decided against it. He never felt so relaxed when she slammed the red thing closed, and started walking down the street.

_Wait…walking away? Wearing such visible colours?_

What was this female thinking! Did she have a death wish! How had she survived so long doing reckless things like this! His basic instincts right in his gut told him it was best to either move quickly and silently, or quietly and slowly through the shadows.

The female chose to do neither, clicking against the hard floor in plain sight.

_Damn it!_ He said his first curse, and sprang from the tree, onto the next rooftop.

He followed her, on edge all the time. If even the smallest little thing like he squashed out in the dead lands, as he called it, even _touched_ her, he would kill it immediately.

He knew in his mind now that she was the reason he came here. She was his big shiny thing in the sky, and him the smaller one by her side.

She was that word. The one he hated and he loved. At least, he wanted her to be. And he felt so protective of her, she couldn't be anything else.

It was like every superior fibre in his body was hot wired into watching over her, protecting her. Like it was his only purpose.

And that is exactly what he did, as he waited on the roof tops, jumping on a huge metallic moving thing she got on, and leaping out of sight, tracking her to a tall mountain no too far from where he found her.

It was soon apparent that there were lots of creatures like her here. And they all wore bright, stupid colours and all endangered themselves. He did see quite a few smart ones, dressed in darker more strategic shades of greys and blacks. But it seemed no one was going to attack them.

_It seems I__am the most dangerous one here._ He hissed with amusement to himself. He soon lost his new sense of humour as _his_ female entered the tall shiny silver mountain, so high he wouldn't be able to jump onto it, and waited patiently, anxiously for her to hurry up and go back to that place he found her. Secluded, isolated, safe. He was quite happy watching here their, beautiful and free of those feeble things clung to her magnificent form.

Yes, she was weak, and fragile, and soft and tender. But she was beautiful, with those same blue eyes that drove him here.

He was strong, dangerous, and omniscient. _He _would be her strength. _He _would be her protective mesoskeleton, her 'inner mouth' her claws. He would protect her.

He would watch over her. And never leaver her.

_I promise._

His right hand tingled suddenly, and he _knew_ it was her who made him feel it. Reassuring him all was well and he was to wait for her.

And wait he did.


End file.
